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It's not just nice, it's necessary: authentic leadership in the new economy

IT’S NOT JUST NICE, IT’S NECESSARY: AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN THE
NEW ECONOMY
by
Sadie Moore
_______________________________________________________________________
A dissertation presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ANTHROPOLOGY)
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Sadie Moore

This dissertation draws on ethnographic fieldwork with members of an upper-level leadership course at a top-tier university in Southern California to examine their constructions of what it means to be a good American leader. Additionally, I examine the ways members invoke authentic leadership, often described as servant leadership, as a strategy to redefine and retain elite status. This servant leadership is often at odds with the highly individualized American Dream, but is increasingly becoming more prominent as a mandate assigned to leaders by management texts, leadership programs, and popular media. Likewise, leaders who are models for servant leadership are epitomized as ideal leaders by this leadership course and its members. This mirrors the idea of character that Emerson prized so highly, and rejects the twentieth century idea that a person should become a leader in order to achieve personal fame or wealth. This shift coincides with the globalization of capital and a knowledge- and service-based economy, which undermine workers security and create instability, anxieties, and processes of individualization.; My research revealed that members go through four stages, introspection, odyssey, reintegration, and network-creation, toward becoming an authentic leader. The story of becoming a "good" American leader is shifting in some ways to a story of reciprocity and the giving of the authentic self, similar to the "big man" style of leadership. In return for the self's "giving" followers respond with degrees of loyalty, work productivity, and time commitments that are increasingly rarer in modern work environments. Authentic leadership represents an inflection toward the social capital, or prestige, gained through giving, and is a strategy used in part to achieve distinction and status in an increasingly flattened, competitive, and risky world.

IT’S NOT JUST NICE, IT’S NECESSARY: AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN THE
NEW ECONOMY
by
Sadie Moore
_______________________________________________________________________
A dissertation presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ANTHROPOLOGY)
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Sadie Moore